Let it uninstall the physx drivers and install new ones. Sorted it for me. Last Light runs like a dream on my 760, I have the MSI twinfrozr one, with a slight extra overclock and get 60FPS in Last Light basically everywhere (not quite so consistent in 2033 though).

Gave this a go tonight, but not joy sadly. It did let me play for ten minutes, but then hung in much the same way. Bastard thing. I'll keep an eye out for Last Light in the sales and hope it's less error prone.

The only way to get this bastard ivy bridge to run at a decent clock is to invest in a better cooler. I'm currently using a (5 year old) Prolimatech Megahalem, which is huge and should more than do the job, but apparently not.

So, can anyone recommend a better cooler than the megahalem? Hyper 212 looks smaller than my current, which doesn't give me much confidence that it would make much difference, so probably something higher-end than that. No water cooling, closed loop or otherwise.

Not keen to spend a fortune, but equally don't want to waste money on a low end cooler that'll make no difference over the current one.

Roddles wrote:
Can't recommend the Noctua coolers enough simply for the quiet fans they use. The big daddy is the NH-D14 which is an ugly beast, but a beast.

Are you more concerned with temperatures or voltage? Using a better cooler isn't going to lower voltages.

Nah the volt levels are fine, it's simply that to get it stable, the megahalem is coming up 10-15 degrees short. I knew Ivy is hotter than Sandy, but I'm still a bit surprised the Megahalem isn't cutting it. That said, it is 4-5 years old now, and maybe the new ones have more efficient sinks or something.

Worth considering. The more I think about the H80, the more I think it'll either block the (top mounted) PSU fan heavily or just not have enough room for the radiator - there's only about 1cm of clearance between the current fan & PSU as it is.

This really is driving me bonkers now. The CPU & case fans max out at 1200 or so RPM, so now I'm wondering whether to just invest in a couple of higher RPM fans for £25 or so just in case that makes enough difference, or go the whole hog for a Noctua.

Probably a stupid question, but do heatsinks become less efficient with age? Even at fucking all stock bios (so turbo on to 3.8) and the fucking temps hit 70 - and this is a Megahalem. Granted its a few years old now, but still - it's fucking huge, and clean as a whistle. I know Ivy is hotter than Sandy (this setup used to cool an i5 750 with a decent OC ffs), but that seems wrong as fuck to me.

It's had a fresh application of AS5 paste recently, it's properly seated... I just don't get it. I've even swapped the fans round just in case I had them the wrong way round, but they're definitely pushing over the HS and pulling out through the rear case vent. I half think I'd get better cooling out of the sodding stock HS! This is why I'm not keen on a Hyper 212 evo or similar, as I have a hard time believing that a smaller HS will do a better job than the megahalem monster.

Not had this much shit with a hot PC for fucking years and I'm proper at the end of my tether. Bloody bank hol coming up as well, but I won't be able to play sod all at this rate without cooking the damn cpu

I haven't actually, that is a good point. I'm leaning towards the DH14, I have to admit, and it's only £5 more expensive than the one linked above. I highly doubt a water one would fit given the PSU location.

It's a big bastard, but my megahalem is 158.7 tall and has a few mm clearance from the side panel. DH14 is 160... it'll be close, but I think it'll fit. The Megahalem also currently knocks out the closest RAM slot, so since the DH looks like it would too it shouldn't be a massive issue.

It took me a shameful 25 minutes to install my Noctua cooler. In my defense it has been a while since I built a PC myself, and it's a fucking HUGE beast to try and get both sides screwed in correctly. Also it was 37 degrees outside. So basically I'm a hero, that's the moral of this story.

But the PC is almost silent. I have to crouch down at the back of the machine just to hear any airflow, even with a taxing game being played (although credit in that case goes to the ASUS GPU coolers). It's pretty sweet.

Heh it just arrived, I knew it was going to be big but seeing it is something else!

Will get it installed tonight. RAM clearance is the only slight worry and I've got some spare low profile DIMMs just in case. Got a decent corsair 2000 RPM fan for the rear case exhaust, kinda tempted to use the 1200 rpm corsair currently in the rear case slot as a front intake fan.

Nice to see the thing comes with a pwm splitter so I can run both D-14 fans off the CPU fan slot. Can see why you guys rate them: build quality, presentation all excellent, right down to the cable labelling.

Well, the NH-D14 is in - always a bit scary swapping mobos in & out but no catastrophes!

It fits just fine, with the exception of the RAM clearance, which I had a feeling might be an issue. I do have some spare low-profile DIMMs but they're only 4 gig, so have left my 8 gig high-profile RAM in there for now and am running the DH-14 on the single 140mm 'between sinks' fan.

The 120mm front-sink fan will have to stay off for now til I invest in some decent low profile RAM (otherwise I can't close the case due to the higher fan clearance), but it's already a good 10 degrees cooler than the megahalem, with only one of the two fans. Very chuffed all told.

Have a spare 120mm Corsair fan now after swapping the rear case exhaust for a 2k RPM one. May drop it in the front to help improve the air flow further (so would be Case < Mid Sink < Front Sink < Front Panel), but it means faffing around with the cable routing for the frontplate, so it can wait til I sort new RAM next month.

Come to think of it, I've never actually taken the frontplate off before. Presume it shouldn't be too hard though. Case is a Coolermaster Elite 332, think it has plugs on the inner front of the case for the frontplate.

All good fun! Cheers for the advice guys. Can't figure out the speedfan custom profiles for the life of me tho!